News Releases

Eastern Shawnee Tribe Benefits from Recovery Act Water Funds to Improve Water Services

(Dallas, Texas – July 8, 2009) The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma will have improved access to vital water services through funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Indian Health Service (IHS) today announced $90 million nationwide in ‘shovel ready’ infrastructure projects designed to better protect human and environmental health in Indian Country. “EPA and Oklahoma tribes share a common interest when it comes to caring for people and the environment,” said EPA Acting Regional Administrator Lawrence E. Starfield. “The Recovery Act is helping us fund more projects by the Eastern Shawnee and other tribes that will deliver long-term benefits for their communities and respective lands.”

The project benefiting the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma will involve making connections to drinking water supplies.

Continuing a tradition spanning 20 years, EPA and IHS’s combined effort to improve water services in Indian Country contributed to their identification of 95 wastewater and 64 drinking water priority projects to be completed by IHS’s Sanitation Facilities Construction Program through EPA Recovery Act funds. The projects exceed the Recovery Act requirement that 20 percent of the funds be used for green infrastructure, water and energy efficiency improvements and other environmentally innovative projects.

President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on February 17, 2009, and has directed that the recovery act be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability. To that end, the American people can see how every dollar is being invested at recovery.gov.